Long Skirts
by AmazinglyMe
Summary: Jane is running a quick errand for her mother on a sunny afternoon and pauses to ponder a few chalk drawings and growing up. ONESHOT.


_A/N: I couldn't resist this for some reason. I hope everyone enjoys it -- please let me know what you think of it! _

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Jane walked briskly down the street towards the baker's. 

Her mother had sent her to get a few loaves of bread and she'd been given permission to buy a cinnamon roll to share with Michael as well, so her steps hurried, carrying her towards the shop two streets down that always smelled like baking bread and warm cinnamon. She smiled in anticipation.

The sun shone brightly down, illuminating London's streets. It was right around lunchtime and the usual bustle had slowed down somewhat. A few people were taking walks, or strolling out to take care of errands, but mostly the sunlight warmed empty sunlight.

Jane's skirts swished around her. She'd been so proud when her mother had given her slightly longer skirts. It meant she was growing up, a fact she was very proud of. For the first few days she had simply watched the fabric of the skirt flow around her legs, happily twirling to watch the effect. Michael had scoffed at his "girly" sister but she had simply ignored him, spinning in front of the mirror.

Jane looked up again to see that ahead of her, on the sidewalk, someone had been hard at work on the pavement. Bright colors called up to her, pictures of circuses and rivers and hot air balloons in clear blue skies flourished. And there…There was a hill. A green, green hill, with a little road leading away, just over it, and Jane wondered to herself, smiling slightly, where the road led.

She could see, in her mind's eye, a carousel with beautifully carved horses in blue and green and pink, who flew off the carousel at a mere request. Though of course, it couldn't be a request from just anyone.

Jane looked around cautiously. There was no one there to watch her, and she hesitantly stepped forward to examine the drawings more closely.

To her they were echoes of the past. Only a few years ago, she had seen drawings very much like these. She had been nine. She'd marveled at the beautifully drawn pictures, and informed their creator that they were going on an "outing." And he'd grinned his lopsided grin, and led her and Michael along the line of drawings and asked them where they'd most like to go.

Jane looked around once more, and then, before she had time to think, she gathered up her skirts in her hands, closed her eyes, and jumped over one of the scenes.

She could see herself, magically transported into rolling green hills with the music of a carousel just around the corner. Just over the hill. Just around the turn in the road…

But when she opened her eyes all she saw was the green grass of a park and an empty sidewalk.

She bit her lip and chastised herself silently. She was much older now. She was supposed to know better. There was no such thing as magic, and that glorious "outing" into a chalk drawing had been nothing more than wisps of a child's imagination. Mum had told her she was growing up.

Jane had come downstairs for the first time in her new, lengthened skirt, the fabric swishing around much closer to her ankles then it had just the day before. Mum had looked up from her work at the table and smiled slightly wistfully at her daughter.

"You're growing up darling." She'd observed quietly, and then she had given Jane a cookie afterwards as though hoping chocolate chips could transport Jane back to the days when a cookie had been all it took to make Jane jump up and down and clap little hands.

But still, Jane thought, looking down at the chalk drawing, certainly she had not imagined all of it. Tea on the ceiling and a night spent on the rooftops of London and Mary Poppins herself winning a horse race.

That magical tape measure that had informed them that Mary Poppins was "practically perfect in every way."

The thing that Jane remembered most clearly of her last nanny was not her first sight of her, though that had been extraordinary -- a full grown woman hanging onto an umbrella as she blew straight over the Banks' front gate. No, Jane's clearest memory of her was when she and Michael had been hiding on the landing of the stairs listening to father's interview with this latest nanny prospect. They'd liked what they'd heard, and stifled giggles as father had banged his head on the mantel of the fireplace.

But then an astounding sight had greeted their eyes.

Mary Poppins had come sliding _up_ the banister.

Prim and proper, her back ramrod straight, she'd alighted on the landing gracefully as though she had done nothing out of the ordinary at all.

She had surely not imagined Mary Poppins.

Jane faced the picture again and summoned up all her memories of those few months with that remarkable nanny. She remembered sunny days like this one, and errands for mum, and Uncle Albert and, with a bittersweet feeling, the day the wind had changed. And she forgot entirely that she was wearing long skirts. For one instant, one wistful instant, she was nine again, and she was clutching Michael's hand on one side and a chimney sweep's on the other, and jumping straight _in_ to a chalk drawing.

This time Jane opened her eyes immediately and for one moment she could have sworn she saw a green hill and heard the faint strains of a carousel far off in the distance.

Then noontime London flooded back into her vision, and Jane slowly turned and headed back toward the baker's. Mum would be wondering where she had gotten to, and she would get a scolding for having taken so long getting the bread.

"You're a big girl now. You mustn't dawdle." Her mother would admonish.

But, Jane though, casting a backward glance over her shoulder at the chalk drawing, she was not quite **entirely** a "big girl" just yet.

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_A/N: Thoughts? Comments? Let me know! Constructive crit is much appreciated always. :)_  



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